Robotech: Providence
by Rick Ons
Summary: Far from Earth at the edge known space, a group of Colonies fall under attack by a shadowy and powerful foe eager to exploit old vendettas. It falls to a group of untested warriors to defend their home from the menace, if they can discover it.


The following was conceived after watching about five of the original Robotech episode, playing through the Robotech Battlecry Xbox game, and watching the Macross Frontier series, in other words, this will undoubtedly be the most inaccurate, inconcise, and improbable thing I've ever written. And just to avoid the headache of translation, I'll use the terms from said game.

Please do enjoy. Or try to at least.

* * *

Kacj Carter had always wanted to go into space as a kid, and then found his childhood dream boring two days into it. People always talked about space as a wild, exciting, unpredictable zone of magic and mystery, until they actually _went _there and learned the ugly truth, learned why it hadn't been named Exciting-Adventure-Place rather than Outer Space.

Nothing ever happened.

True, his first view from the main observation deck of the _Errant Night _to be breathtaking, watching the Earth shrink away as a brown and blue orb, humbled by the realization that such a small smear on the tapestry of the night sky contained everything humanity had been and currently was.

Hence why they'd begun spreading out into the void, the risks in doing so minute compared to that of remaining on said blue-brown planet. Ever since the fateful crash landing of the original SDF fifty years ago, bringing both amazing new technology and the threat of alien extermination, mankind had gotten an ugly wakeup call to the fact that the universe, for all its majesty and ethereal beauty, was not a gentle or friendly place, nor was the worst of it contained beyond the veil of the solar system.

Motivations for exploration quickly became that of survival: ever since the Earth had nearly been destroyed for the third time it was decided that Humans could not occupy only a single, frail world if expected to survive ascension into the Space Age.

"Shepherd Five, you're drifting five degrees port, please correct." Snapped from his musings by the brusque tone of Squad Leader Tiller, he pressed left his foot lightly down on the corresponding pedal which in turn flared his Veritech's port maneuvering thruster; five degrees didn't sound a lot to the untrained mind, but over such a vast distance a tiny deviation, if left unchecked, could and _had_ resulted in entire colony fleets ending up light-years off course.

True to their callsigns, Shepherd Squadron was the guard dog of former Colonization Fleet Epsilon-12, now having renamed itself and the cluster of inhabited solar systems settled Providence. Kacj and his family had arrived here when he was thirteen; five years later he'd signed up for the Space Forces in hopes of finding a more exciting career than terraforming and construction. "Check, check! All wings, priority alert, distress beacon activated at location Gamma, repeat, we have an active distress beacon at---"

For example, farmers didn't get to chase pirates.

Shepherd Squadron homed in on the signal until they sighted a transport being harassed by a pair of small, fighter-like craft, the nimble ships. The pirates had waited for the large freighter to fold-in before attacking, knowing that its shields would be temporarily offline from the unstable fluctuations of the warp.

Two of the craft's three main engines were charred twisted husks of metal, the third saved by a timely raise of the shields when the crew realized they were under attack. Kacj checked his FOF screen which ID'ed the freighter as _Bulker-9 _while the two smaller craft, like any good pirate vessel, lacked so much as a flag signature on scan. At this distance it was impossible to make out their design and model but Kacj suspected they were either assault shuttles or light frigates.

Tiller announced their presence to the freighter than issued a warning over a general band that the pirates were sure to pickup. Shepherd squadron outnumbered the pirates six to one, Kacj prepared to align himself for intercept when the two vessels broke and r---.

"Shit! I got a lock on me! Evading!" Jimino suddenly banked hard to the right and a small plume of white streaked from the lead craft: a missile. At the same time Milo, Tiller's wingman, started screaming about "unknown contacts, lots of 'em!"

The great void suddenly got less empty.

* * *

Though they'd answered dozens of calls about pirates harrying freighters and passenger boats, this was the first time there'd actually been shots fired, let alone an out and out fight. The scum always ran, or surrendered if they couldn't escape. They'd never fought back.

Never killed anyone. The first victim had been a kid a year younger than Kacj, Dan Frep or something; he'd gotten through recruitment on a technicality. His voice tended to crack, even as he'd screamed while his body was consumed by fire and hot iron.

The ambush had come from multiple directions. Shepherd Squadron had been driven apart as laserfire and missiles had erupted from clean radar pockets. Active scans had revealed nothing new, no Intel on numbers or points of origin.

However, they did eventually learn what their attackers flew.

"This is Two; confirming enemy craft as V-class, repeat, _they are flying Veritechs!_" The panic was evident in Jimino's voice even as he struggled to remain the stoic, focused pilot he always tried to pass himself off as.

Fear and Anger, Tiller had taught them, had their place in combat, yet a soldier who let himself be dominated by either quickly wound up as floating bits of flash-frozen debris. For his part, Kacj thought he was controlling his emotions---tolerably. It was impossible to completely ignore them, but then it was foolhardy to try, as the grizzled veteran would lecture: Fear kept you from growing overconfident, Anger gave you focus over fear and doubt.

_Focus, focus, focus…yet restraint!_ He grit his teeth firing his nose lasers at the nearest enemy Veritech, desperately wishing he could just pop off a missile and be done with it, but the black craft were equipped with some sort of stealth modifications that had rendered all missiles fired so far utterly useless, and also allowed them to fly up behind you undetected by scanners and radar, as Shepherds Seven and Three had found out too late.

_Don't be distracted by questions, don't waste concentration trying to figure out who they are and why they're here, it's irrelevant for now, now all that matters is getting out of this alive._

His console lit up, alarms screamed and several yellow dots appeared on his radar, a second later Jimino yelled in his right ear: "Three, you've five lives coming up your ass; two bogeys to the left!"

_At least the missiles aren't stealthed…_

"Two can you cover me? Two?" His gut burned at the thought of his friend being shot down in the split second he'd been distracted by the missiles, but no, a quick check to the screen showed his icon still active, bobbing and darting, hounded by ghosts. He wouldn't be getting support any time soon…and the missiles were still coming.

Cursing under his breath Kacj weighed his options: at flat speed in open space he could likely outrun them, except to do so would involve flying straight thereby making himself a target for a finisher, but swerving about to avoid the flanks would kill his speed and what the missiles lacked in velocity they made up for in acceleration and maneuverability. As a starfighter, he was trapped.

Fortunately, he wasn't _just _a plane.

"This is Five, going V-3." Kacj sucked in a deep breath of recycled air from his flightsuit, then flipped the lever he'd marked with a piece of tape labeled ROBOT MODE.

The transformation wasn't instantaneous, but it might as well have been. Going at twice the speed of sound while switching modes didn't help his stomach or inner ear, or his dentures, Kacj thought with a wince as his teeth rattled inside his jawbones while his canopy vanished under a ceiling of metal as the cockpit folded down and tucked itself into the middle of the fighter.

The console screen flickered once then, and then replaced the flight HUD with a domed projection of the feed from the camera mounted on the "face" of the Battleoid's head which served as eyes, eyes assisted by targeting computers of course. Currently five red squares had outlined themselves around the incoming missiles less than fifteen hundred kilometers away.

Kacj squeezed the trigger once more. The Veritech's targeting system had already predicted the course of the projectiles which, thankfully, had no self-preservation protocols in their A.I.s to try to evade his shots. All five detonated in a spectacular blossom of orange like the petals of a flower. One threat dealt with, Kacj fired the main thruster on the back of the Battleoid and watched the two black fighters streak by, overshooting him by kilometers.

His breath finally escaped in a whoosh, he'd held it throughout the entire ordeal: eight seconds. Though they were long out of range he gave in a little to Anger and squeezed off several rounds at the two Veritechs as they began to loop around for another pass at the slower but nimbler mecha. _Go ahead, waste a few more rockets, or better yet, close into gunnery range so I can pop one of ya._

The duo circled him at high speed, holding their fire, Kacj felt some of his confidence bleed away; they were waiting for him to pick a target and again he found himself with two impossible choices: in Battleoid mode they were faster than him and could make a pass from two directions that even his targeting computer couldn't catch, and if he tried to chase one in fighter-mode his buddy would simply drop behind him.

But again, he had a third option. "Going V-2," he said, yanking down the lever marked HYRBID. Now he was back in the cockpit, except that he still maintained the floating-hover of a Battleoid, and several missile pods hanging down under wings. Up ahead the two black fighters decided they didn't like this new change and bore down on him, nose lasers firing.

Recalling the failure of the homing systems he opted for a manually guided launch, continuing to maneuver with the left stick while switching the right stick, normally reserved for controlling one of the arms of the Battleoid, over to flight control of the missiles. The hybridized craft shuddered under the recoil of the launch as three streaks of white lanced out at the oncoming fighters.

Their reaction taught Kacj something else about his unknown opponents: they were overconfident. Trusting in their stealth armor the black Veritechs simply maneuvered out of the direct path of the missiles, but arrogantly kept powering straight forward. He resisted the urge to correct the rockets. _Not yet, let them think they're drones…_

The console tracked the distance between all objects near the missiles, including the fighters. _Wait for it…_five kilometers away…._wait_….three kilometers…_wait_…two_…wait_…one…_almost_…half a kilometer_…a little more…._ten meters.

_Now!_

The rockets detonated, Kacj whooping in elation at the blast enveloping one of the Veritechs in a blast of hot white, shredding the fuselage and shattering the cockpit. His wingman had been too far from the detonation, but he still veered wildly to the right, either startled or tossed in that direction from shockwave. The fighter leveled out and blasted away. _That should teach him a little humility_ _and respect for lesser equipped enemies._

"Two? Five to Two, do you copy?" _Did they kill you, Jim? _"Please respond."

Static for a heart wrenching minute, then he caught sight of a familiar blip and an even more familiar voice chimed, "Two here; still kicking. I think I've lost my tails, how 'bout you?"

Kacj nodded reflexively, even though his wingman couldn't see the gesture. "One bogey down, other's turned tail."

"You got a kill?" The jubilant exultation was sorely out of place. "Gratz, man, that's gotta be your first!"

"Yeah…yeah it was," Kacj's heart thrummed in his ears, feeling the urge to rip off his helmet and swab furiously at the cold sweat running down his brow. _Someone just died. Because of me._ But to be fair, he argued with himself, they were, and still are, trying to kill you. He tried to raise the squadron: nothing, long-range communications were down, jammed more likely.

"We've drifted from the rest of the fight," Jimino said, "I've got a lock on Tiller's position, still can't raise him; I don't think they're doing too well. Only getting six IFFs."

Kacj thought he's pressure suit had ruptured in a vacuum with the speed that the air left his lungs. Only six left? Fourteen craft had responded to the distress call, he hoped most of the missing beacons had bugged out.

Bugging out didn't seem like such a bad idea at the moment. His arms and joints ached from the dozens of Gs pulled; his skin had grown wet and clammy inside the flightsuit despite the rehydration packets. The blood gushed from end of his body to another, he was, in all sense of the word, spent, spent like the missiles he'd fired from his hybridized Guardian-mode.

Yet as he readied himself to announce this to his wingman, the jamming, perhaps through a minor equipment flare or cosmic interference, dropped for a second. Kacj had left his comm. on free-scan in case of such an event, resulting in his cockpit being flooded by pleas for help, damage reports, and called visuals.

A light blinked off on the console; only five signatures remained in the kill zone. "Take my Wing, Two," he spoke with the resolution of a condemned man who'd accepted his fate, "we're going in."

* * *

Captain James Armand Tiller had spent his career putting down Zentradi revolts on Earth and some of the newly formed colonies. He'd always topped his squadron's killboard, always sent the most of the overgrown mutants to whatever their concept of hell was.

Perhaps it was fitting then that he'd meet his end at the hands of another human, or at least, a human craft. Given the manner in which the blue-striped jet-black Veritech, obviously the leader of this attack, had singled out his own craft for a duel, he suspected he might yet have his head claimed by a Zen, that was something they understood, a mano-a-mano showdown between battleforce leaders.

_They never could grasp the fact that the reason Cowardly Khyron outlasted Mighty Dolza was not because he was a better warrior, but because he knew when to quit, or at least throw patsies to soften up someone who could kick his ass otherwise…._

As for Tiller, he fought the duel because he had no choice, but he held no illusions of glory or personal elevation: the enemy numbered too many, their technology left them virtually untouchable, and all around him his squadron was dying, whittled down slowly but surely. He'd heard of maybe three kills by Shepherd squadron, but now it was all they could do hold on, to evade the deadly weave of fire picking them off one at a time.

_Well...if I can off this mook, maybe he'll be irreplaceable, maybe his loss will set them back, possibly even demoralize the squadron and get my boys outta here._ A futile hope, perhaps, but it gave him motivation to continue the fight. Tiller looped past the currently-hybrid formed Veritech and popped into Battleoid mode, rocketing forward in midturn aiming for the vulnerable thrust unit on the lower back.

Rather than try to turn to meet him, Blue-Strip folded out into the sleek fighter Tiller had first seen harassing Bulker-9, the freighter long since reduced to a roasting husk in the quiet dark, gunning his afterburners, rolling backwards in a tight loop, as he descended towards him he released first his right missile cluster, then his left.

Tiller had shot the first batch before he realized his mistake; by staggering his launch Blue-Stripe had created a cover for both the second wave of missiles, and eventually himself. _Very clever; he knows how to counter a Veritech._ _But that's not a tactic a Veritech pilot would know or be inclined to use even if they did…he _is _definitely_ _a Z. Maybe I fried a buddy or relative of his? _

He almost didn't get the second cluster, interference from the explosions threw off his targeting computer, however, Tiller had developed something of a knack for 'oid sniping, this core of patience and battle calmness had formed the core of his training for Shepherd Squadron, he was proud of his boys, their first, and probably last, live combat, and they were performing finer than many of the season warriors he'd flown with in his prime.

He could still here their comms. They were frightened, but not panicked, strained, but not broken. They knew the end was coming, knew there was no escape, no victory, and they didn't give two shits. They were the protectors of the Providence Cluster, and they'd continue their duties unto death.

Closing one eye like the ancient gunslingers of old, Tiller sighted on four missiles, squeezed the trigger lightly four times, and was rewarded with four explosions in perfect sequence. The veteran allowed a wolfish grin to form under visor, now to wait for the next step of the dance.

Not one to disappoint, the night-colored figure of a Battleoid emerged through the expanding gases, shrapnel scattering harmlessly off its armor, gun ready, pilot anticipating Tiller to panic and try to evade him.

_Maybe a rookie would._ He fired directly into the chest of the descending mecha, _but I'm too codgy for that._

The shot would have been fatal, _should _have been fatal, yet in the nanosecond before the laser left the barrel the mecha twisted at the waist, causing the yellow beam to graze its torso, sheering off plate and steel, but missing the cockpit or the critical components necessary to cripple the machinery. Tiller only smiled, cursed his luck, then braced for impact.

Up until this point the only forces he'd felt, being suspended in the weightlessness of space, had been those generated by his own Veritech. The collision between the two mecha felt like an old crash landing he'd been forced to perform during his youth. Stars spun outside on the camera, they spun inside his helmet, and even the removal of the protective outer casing didn't stop Blue-stripe from attacking like a berserker from Norse legend.

_Fisticuffs, huh? That's how we're going to settle it? If you wanted that, we could have landed on the nearest planet and spared the damage to the spacecraft, they don't grow on trees after all!_

The fight wasn't so much a true melee as it was the Battleoids firing their maneuvering thrusters, entangling their limbs and each trying to wedge his laser cannon into the other for a point-blank blast. Tiller stared into the soulless red camera of Blue-Stripe, and he suspected his own green visage filled the HUD of his opponent.

Abruptly the controls for the left arm failed as the cockpit shuddered under titanic force, accompanied with a loud squealing, like metal sheering apart. Tiller clicked the stick a few times experimentally, puzzled as to the sudden malfunction until he caught a flash of gray/white mixed in with the outside black. Blue-Stripe had ripped the appendage, laser cannon and all, clean from its socket. _It figures they'd be stronger also._

Disarmed, so to speak, it was child's play for the other Battleoid to push him away with almost dismissive gentleness; the two drifted apart for a few moments, _he wants to let it sink in_, Tiller thought with a sneer of contempt, _wants me to soil myself, maybe beg for mercy of the comm. _

Blue-Stripe raised his laser cannon. He fired. The cockpit shuddered under the impact, the HUD went dark. _Cocky bastard shot off my head_, Tiller realized in frustrated helplessness. Now he was toying with him, systematically dismantling the mecha, the pilot unable to see where he was aiming, not knowing when it would finally end.

The Veritech rattled again. The maneuvering thrusters this time. _My legs._ A third shot, _the right arm._ That left only the torso, a grisly joke. Tiller sighed with acceptance and leaned back in the crash chair, closing his eyes to wait for the inevitable.

Then he heard a voice. Clear, cutting through the garbled chatter of a dying squadron, through the invisible net of jamming. "Shepherd Five to One. Me and Two are sixty kilometers from your position, we have a fix on your beacon, hold on, sir, we're coming!"

The defeated soldier's muddled brain slowly put together what he'd heard: two free Veritechs, the jamming seemingly stopped for the moment, and they were sixty kilos away---that meant they could possibly escape, possibly warn Prov-Def Command about this sudden aggression by this nightmare mirror force.

"Negative! Negative!" Tiller yelled into the comm. "Do not engage, repeat, do not engage. Shepherd Two and Five, you are ordered to break from combat: _get out of here!_"

They didn't protest. They knew better; they'd probably only come in out of a sense of duty. Brave but impractical, if he thought himself about to survive this; he'd have included taking needless risks his next lecture.

"Roger," Five replied, voice bitter, "bugging out. Godspeed, One."

Tiller smiled with renewed hope; someone would make it! Someone would escape! He hadn't failed after all.

The reserved old veteran was still smiling when the final shot came, cracking the dismembered open like a raw egg and obliterating his body down to the atoms.


End file.
